Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1887-06-22
G. H. YENowINE,
NEW YORK'S MORTALITY.
a Rate Exceeded in Only Three Cities
in THIS Country.
Especial Correspondence
HNV'1
NEW YORK, June 1S.

Especial Correspondence
NEW YORK, June 49,
The painful fact is proved that the NOR
tality rate in New York city is higher than
in most of the great cities of the world,
whether in cool or warm climates. Rich
mond, Mobile and New Orleans are the only
cities in the United States that exceed it. and
in the two former this is due to the excessive
death rate of the colored people. for in Rich
mond the yearly deaths among the whites
were for 1884 but 10 in /, 900, and in Mobile
but little more, while New York's losses were
$50 per 1000 Even Calcutta, where the
cholera comes almost every year, has death
rate but slightly greater than that Of New
Cork, and the annual death rate of New
Orleans in the worst yellow fever years was
tut trile greater than that of New York.
The reasons can be summed up in one word
fifth. Immigrants from the poorest classes
Of southern Europe are poured into this city
10y the hundred thousand; they crowd into
tenements SO thickly that ventilation is i'm
possible, and live on the poorest of food.-The
result is that children perish by myriads.
New Yorks location should make it one of
the notably healthful cities OF the world. It
is built upon an island of ragged rock, thinly
covered here and there by earth; the slope
rivers insures the best of drainage; twice a
day the tide pours briny torrent up the
Hudson and East rivers, washing allsi DIES of
the city, and at night the iodixed sea air
sweeps every street and alley. The heat is
seldom oppressive for moro than two or three
days at time and even in midsummer the
nights are for the most part pleasantly cool,
Nature has done her part well; the excessive
death rate is due only to the folly and ignor-
ance of men. Other cities were located by
accident, like Rome in defensible corner
between marsh AMI hills, or St. Petersburg in
bog; but Manhattan island was from the
beginning marked by the hand of nature as
the site of a metropolis. The angle of the
coast and Long Island sound, the confluence
of great navigable river with the sound, the
valleys opening to the interior as natural
routes for trade and travel, all COM
bine to make this the great city
of the western continent. The woe
full waste of life here is due to the fact
that population increases faster than govern
mcAt CT sanitary science can care for it;
city that doubles its population in a.quarter
Of a century outSrows the wiseSt measures of
craftsmanship. Let government and ply
sicians plan ever so wisely, their measures for
the prevention of disease are no sooner car
itlLO iilftil IL lOuIlu tnaU C0e pODu
lation has swollen by 100000 or 800, 900 be-
yond the scope of the plans. The time is at
hand, however, when far more radical meas
ures must be adopted; government, in spite
of its democratic form, will be compelled to
become paternal, and at enormous cost. And
tenement houses must be torn down and
their sites made into open parks. Marrow
streets must be enlarged A systematic
house to house visitation must be adopted in
all the squalid sections, and the newly arrived
Italians, Hungarians and others who are
children in the art of self government must
be treated as children until they learn to
take better care of themselves, Death is an
expensive institution Even if our humanity
would allow us to "let the unclean PERISH
reasonable regard for ourselves would
compel action. With things as they are, it is
plain that the death rate will increase At
the best there are many woeful sights In
great city-diseased and distorted beggars,
i'll looking vagabends and repulsive drunk
ards, tramps, cheats and buns" the outcast
and the forlorn who form little alley congre-
cations of rags, sore eyes and sin All these
and many other causes 20 to make city life
unhappy. The favored few escape the misery,
but it is plain to me that in the mass New
Workers are not happy. j. II. EEADLs.